Don't Believe It Anymore
by Ishty
Summary: A song fic, taken from an outstanding performance by Cote de Pablo. One of two fics by myself and mollygibbs101. Thank you so much earanemith for posting the song on Youtube!


**A/N: ***makes molly look the other way and copies some parts of her A/N*

Heya everyone!  
Basically myself and mollygibbs101 *nods to her friend* have decided to write a song fanfic each, with the same inspiration.

I found a link to an youtube vid on a ncis spoiler site *no idea why it got posted there, but hey!* Anyway, the link goes to a vid (posted it on my profile, it's from another ffn writer earanemith, check it out!) which has a song as music, which is sung by the amazing, one and only Cote de Pablo. (It's from her musical time... )

Anyway, molly and myself have interpreted this song in different ways. Including some Zibbs. ALTHOUGH mine is no romantic Zibbs. It's more a friendship thing^^

Okay enough said! Except:

**Song: "Don't Believe It Anymore" by Bronx Casket Co The Musical, (2002/2003) *sung by CdP herself^^***

**Enjoy!**

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**~ "Don't Believe It Anymore" ~**

It was one of their rare days off, when Leroy Jethro Gibbs made his way to his newest Probationary Special Agent's apartment.

Bickering between the team and a complain from Abby about missing the former Israeli's dishes, had led to Ziva holding another dinner party for the whole team, including Abby, Ducky and Palmer.

Today would also be the first time anyone of the team would set a foot into her new apartment, since the day she had left the small quarters behind, which Vance had provided her with at the Navy Lodge. And Gibbs couldn't help but wonder what it looked like now. Her old apartment had a certain class and style to it, but the wage of a federal agent wasn't exactly material to start building your life from scratch again.

As Gibbs neared the apartment door, he caught the sound of someone singing inside. He briefly checked if he really stood in front of the correct door, before letting a smile slip on his face.

"You've got a great voice," he thought inwardly and took his lock picks out of his inner jacket pocket. He would be damned if he interrupted her singing by knocking on the door. If she would even hear it over the music and her own voice.

It took him rather long before he heard the telltale click as the lock gave away.

"That took longer as expected..." Gibbs grumbled mentally. "Cautious girl, must get one of the best locks available..."

Not knowing the layout of the apartment, he opened the door very slowly and quietly. He half expected to be greeted by his trigger-happy Probie and her gun at any moment. Although the sound of her voice was still unchanged and audible, showing absolutely no signs that she had noticed his entrance.

"Although she's probably trained to not let it show..." Gibbs thoughts drifted back to her assignment in Morocco.

Quietly he followed the long hallway, bypassing two doors till he reached a spacious living area. Gibbs carefully looked around the corner.

"There you are..."

He momentarily froze and leaned flat against the wall, out of sight, as she had stopped singing the moment he had whispered the words.

"This was not a good idea," he inwardly decided. "Sneaking up on her and practically invading her privacy. Great job ya bastard." He really hoped not to get shot at within the next minutes.

He nearly slummed to the floor in relief as the music once again filled the apartment and her voice rung out again.

Gibbs was about to leave the apartment and to come back by knocking on the door and waiting outside till the door would be opened – the matter of the picked lock put aside - , after he would had controlled his racing heart, when the lyrics of the song stopped him.

_I used to believe in love,_

_I used to believe in fate,_

_I used to believe that I could find my way._

Gibbs frowned deeply. "What the hell..."

_I used to believe in miracles,_

_I used to believe in God above._

The way her voice rung out loud and clear, so full of emotions, his gut fastened with knots. She was singing the song as if she meant it. But this couldn't be. The Ziva he knew, even the new one which they had brought back home a few months ago, seldom wavered in her beliefs. Not like this. Sure, she had changed, he could see it in her eyes every day, but she still believed. Or so he thought till a few seconds ago.

_Now I see my faith has been betrayed._

"Ziver... Don't," he closed his eyes. His mind flashing back to the last summer, where he had left her. Confused and alone. Although he had accepted her thanks for leaving her on that fateful day on the tarmac and even as much as told her that he was right to leave her behind, he still felt guilty. The guilt only easing slightly day by day as the positive outcome emerged out of the shadows. She was no longer a minion of her father, no longer played by two masters as Vance had put it, no longer would they need to fear that she was recalled to Mossad and soon no one would even be able to make her leave and return to Israel.

_As I get closer to the truth, _

_I can finally see my destiny._

"No, you don't know it..." Gibbs thought grimly. Being able to lipread he had watched her through the telescopic sight of his sniper rifle from the moment Saleem had ripped off the hood from her head. He still knew every word she had said to Tony. 'I am ready to die,' that's what lingered in his head the most. As he had been forced to watch on for endless minutes, he had been made painful aware of what Saleem and his men must have had put her through to make her say such things. He still didn't knew if he should be proud or mad at her, for telling his agents to save themselves and to forget about her.

_And if I find the way to make it all seem right, _

_You would still be gone,_

_And I would be here alone._

Involuntary Gibbs' thoughts drifted to Rivkin. If that 'idiot' hadn't screwed up that badly, bathing in his own ignorance and if Ziva had been able to get him extracted out of the US on time, the two Israelis would have been teared apart anyway.

Ziva might have been gone back to Israel by now, lured there by no one else but her so called boyfriend who got sent after her by her own father. Once this would have been done, Gibbs wasn't sure if their relationship would have lasted after all. For sure not the way Ziva would have liked it.

_I don't believe it anymore._

_I don't believe it anymore._

_All these tears can't wash away, _

_The pain I keep inside._

"You shouldn't keep it bottled up. It's no good. Believe me, I got my fair share of bottled up emotions gone wrong..."

_I don't believe it anymore._

_I don't believe it anymore._

_And I can pray but it won't change, _

_The way I felt before._

"That's why we look ahead and not back..."

_I don't believe it anymore._

_I used to love the rain,_

_I used to love the night,_

_I used to live where others used to hide._

The last line elicited a laugh from him. "World traveler, my ass..." She most likely had seen more countries and lived through worse than he had, with him being twice her age and a marine. "Bet you hide too sometimes..." He smirked.

_But now that's not a part of me, _

"Damn right."

_And all I see can't be believed._

"I suddenly have the urge to shake some sense into you..."

_A falling star alone against an endless sky._

"Your neither falling nor alone. You're a rising phoenix. Reborn and stronger than before." Gibbs shook his head. He really needed to talk to her. Preferably right now, but once again, he valued his life – for the moment. Gibbs really wanted to hear the rest.

_I don't believe it anymore._

_I don't believe it anymore._

_All these tears can't wash away,_

_The pain I keep inside. _

_I don't believe it anymore._

_I don't believe it anymore._

_But all that's left is emptiness,_

_And darkness fills the light ._

_I still love rainbows,_

_I still love fantasies,_

_And I still love everything._

"Good..."

_Looovvvvvveeeeee..._

"Kid got one hell of a voice..."

_I used to believe in love,_

_I used to believe in fate,_

_I used to believe in miracles... _

"Only used?" Gibbs finally quietly asked as her voice trailed off and didn't seemed to continue..

In a blink of an eye, the knife, which Ziva had in her hand instinctively rose and got flung in direction of the voice, which had startled her deeply.

"Gibbs?" Shocked, she stared wide eyed at him.

The team leader let out a nervous chuckle. _"Why have I been worried about her gun? That Knife is definitive more dangerous than that gun of hers..."_ he thought wryly as he regarded the object, which now stuck in the wall where his head was only moments ago.

"Are you alright?" Ziva had come to him and laid a shaking hand on his cheek.

"I'm okay. It's okay," he was quick to response, pulling his shocked agent into a tight embrace.

"What are you doing here?" She whispered after a few moments in which Gibbs unique smell of coffee and sawdust and his beating heart had convinced her that she hadn't just killed her boss with a cooking knife.

"Came to see if I could help you." he mumbled against her ear, squeezing her one last time.

"Oh," Ziva carefully detached herself from him. Uncertainly she stood in front of him.

"You got coffee?" Gibbs smirked, causing her to relax again.

"Of course."

"Good, then let's make some and then we'll talk." He gave her a long stare, leaving no room for argument Gibbs then headed to the open kitchen area. Ziva sighed but followed him. He might let some things slip but judging by his determined look he was in Pit Bull mood, which meant that he would not leave her alone till he had his answers.

"I still think I should continue cooking," mumbled Ziva as they sat on her couch a few minutes later.

Gibbs smirked, "Nope. Not gonna happen."

"But what about dinner..." Ziva protested and started to get up when Gibbs caught her wrist and gently made her sit back down.

He shook his head, "I said I came to help and I don't plan to change that."

"_If this involves cooking AND talking, I don't mind."_ He added silently.

She gave him a pained look. "So?"

"You know about what," he challenged her back but then decided to stop their cat and mouse game before it could go further, "What made you write that song?"

"Who said I wrote it?"

"Ziva..."

She sighed deeply and stared at the coffee table in front of her, "As I once told Tony .. and you for that matter... I had a lot of time to think, last summer." She briefly looked at him, "It was ghosting around in my head ever since. It wouldn't leave me alone..."

Gibbs smirked at hearing the butchered idiom. But he didn't thought twice about correcting her and interrupting her rambling this way.

"It's not how I feel now. It's about how I felt. She told me to write it down in order to give my mind some rest."

He raised an eyebrow.

"You know the..." Ziva trailed off and examined her hands, before looking straight back at him.

"Yeah," he gave her a small smile. He was glad to know that she still visited the psychologist he had recommended. Someone who wouldn't inform him or the director over her process, giving her the chance to come to terms with her past without anyone else intruding her privacy. He also knew from his personal experience that otherwise she never would go along with it.

He never would admit to anyone but Ziva, that it wasn't only the bourbon, the boat building and getting revenge that helped him over the death of his family. Sometimes they were just too much alike for their own good.

"Then why are you still singing it?"

Ziva kept quiet for a long time, "To remember?" she finally feebly admitted, knowing better than to try to divert Gibbs attention with a false or rather half-true answer.

As imagined she found him looking deep into her eyes, trying to find anything, much more bigger, hiding behind her statement, "Why?"

She sighed, getting slightly annoyed the longer this interrogation took. She knew he was only trying to make sense of what he had experienced a few minutes earlier, in order to help her and himself, but that doesn't meant she had to like it.

"Maybe because everything seems to be good, quiet, nearly perfect at the moment? It seems so surreal and too normal..."

"In comparison to what you've lived through..." Gibbs sighed. He only knew a few and clouded versions of some of her Mossad operations. No names given, as not to break protocol, but what he knew, didn't made him jealous or wanting to swap with her, at all.

"Can we please drop it, now?"

Gibbs laughed at her puppy eye expression, which she surely wouldn't have used on him a few years back, "You had any depression?"

"No, why would I?" She looked at him startled, truly confused by his sudden question.

He smirked and raised his hands in surrender as the look turned slightly angry, "Just checking."

Gibbs stood up and extended his hand to hers, "You gonna tell me if that changes, alright?"

She frowned at first but then nodded, "Yes..."

"Good, then let's get back to making dinner." He smiled one of his rare smiles and wiggled his fingers for her to finally accept his help to standup.

Ziva rolled her eyes but took the offered hand. "I cook. YOU only assist. That's my dinner." She walked past him with a sly smile.

"A smart-ass and bossy, too..." Gibbs grumbled good natural, while smiling nonetheless.

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**~ Fin ~

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A/N: Before I get flames, I only watched the vid after writing this. Before, I only heard the music without watching^^ I always do, no offense earanemith!


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